This is the sort of thing that should be debated/discussed by politicians and the people they represent instead of spending the time denying there is a problem in the first place. This is where peoples' opinions are equally valid, for the most part. Why not spend your time expressing your opinion on a solution where your opinion matters rather than wasting your opinion trying to claim the world is flat not warming when all science predicts the world will warm, has shown the world is warming, and continues to find new evidence that the world is warming, almost on a weekly basis.

Here is a summary to a recent article correlating the rise and fall of civilization in Europe to climate change.

I've heard bits and pieces of this before, but this article is being presented as more complete version than we've seen previously. I'll be trying to track down the original article soon and find out.

Thank you, Kevin. It is happening and I just want to broadcast that (I do so on other places too where there is larger readership). I've been at it for four years now and I'm still on the steep part of the learning curve, I think.

Here is a great graphic showing how the earth is warming over time. I think the baseline is 1950-1980 and the graphic displays how far from that average baseline the temperature is. Some people see all the red in the north and claim scientists are trying to say the arctic is hotter than the tropics. No, it is temperature anomaly instead.

You will see the world heat up around late 1940s and 50s, but then cool down again. It seems this was due to the cooling effect of aerosols and particulate matter. Once Clean Air legislation was enacted, particulates decreased and anthropogenic CO2-based warming again became the dominant driver around the early to mid-70s. And no, scientists weren't all claiming there'd be an ice age in the 70s. Another video here, this one from England showing how the UK media really botched the stories.

I agree in principle. Unfortunately it is easier to deny there is a problem than to actually deal with the problem.

This is why I like changing the topic when I can. The original reason (according to my memory) for automotive fuel economy standards was the Arab oil embargo of the early 1970s and a desire to improve air quality. (No one driving into the LA basin back in the day could deny the impact of auto exhaust on air quality.)

Even strong deniers of climate change can support reducing their personal energy costs or reducing dependence on foreign countries that are hostile to the U.S. They might even see a need for air quality improvements in large cities.

Unfortunately legislators still come to the wrong solution as often as not when the underlying problems are long-term. They are notoriously short-term in their thinking.

Other than this forum I typically ignore climate change when I discuss climate saving tech. Energy savings and maybe a nod to cleaner air for breathing are my focus.

Rather than another post: A new product idea that has a lot of potential has been announced. We'll need to see if it works in practice. Basically a battery that will power a home for 8 hours installed as a back-up power supply. If these can actually be charged during the day by solar cells and used to power the home overnight (with increased capacity) it would be a great step forward for alternative energy.

Spock, have you read any of Brian Fagan's stuff?
The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations.
The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilization.

I've read Floods, Famines and Emperors: El Nino and the Fate of Civilizations. I found it a bit disjointed and he kept repeating the same material as if each chapter were separately written to stand alone. Not my favourite book, didn't flow very well, seemed like it was rushed to press, or had several different editors monkeying with it. But I've heard some of his other ones are quite good.

More of his books here. Look to be 25 or so books.

Nope. I've heard a bit here-and-there on podcasts and read some odds-n-ends in short articles.

I don't really care to read anything of length--hence my interest in the Science article--because the conclusion that climate change is disruptive to civilization seems so obvious that it hardly seems worth the effort to investigate beyond executive summaries.

But thanks for the pointer. If I do decide to read something longer I'll take a look.

The 2010 State of the Climate Annual Global Analysis now out. A good overview of the extreme weather events we saw in 2010 is this graphic, suitable for showing in a powerpoint presentation.

If you scroll down to temperature anomalies you can see the cooling effect of La Nina in the Pacific, but despite that the temp anomalies remained high in the most of the world, especially the north (it was flipping hot up there...almost had heat stroke on the open bog--our temp data recorder registered temps of 40 to 45 on the day I was lying backdown in a pile of wet moss wondering if I should crawl under it as well).

I'm pressed for reading time too, and often my books sit around while I wait for the right time to read them. Recently though I think I've found a solution. E-readers. I use Kindle now. I have 20 books on it, and have already read one in those spare minutes throughout the day (waiting for a friend, bus, lecture, etc).

I carry it with me and when I have a few minutes I turn it on and read till I'm called away. Because the Kindle opens right to the last page you read, it is quick to start reading again. My first book took 3 weeks of spare time reading. By contrast, I have a hard copy book lying next to my bed that I'm now halfway through even though I have been reading it since mid-December.

Took me almost a year to decide to make the transition, and now I'm wishing I'd done it sooner (in part because I have another 20 or so books from 2010 that I could have picked up in e-format rather than hard copies--I just can't justify buying the same book in e-format, much as I'm tempted to.

Incidentally, you can download Kindle for PC or Mac. My second Kindle book reading is Climate Change Biology. Diagrams and pictures are in colour. The Kindle device does not read colour. However, if you download the Kindle program to your computer it will sync with your Kindle device and all the books on your Kindle device can be read on your computer, and the diagrams/pictures can then be seen in full colour on your computer.

One glitch in my plan though is that the Kindle 3.0 device reads pdf (Kindle 2 had problems). So I've started loading a wide variety of papers onto my device, which means I'm spending my spare minute time reading those journal articles I've been meaning to read but haven't gotten around to. As a result, it seems I'm heading back towards the original problem of not having enough time to read anything of length.

"I just finished my first book. Now I'm gonna read another one!"
--Rodney Dangerfield

Interesting.

I divide reading into 3 broad categories: purely recreational (novels and such), semi-professional (popular press science books and such), and professional (journal articles and must read professional books).

My wife has a kindle 1 and uses it for her recreational reading. Since I still have a large supply of unread recreational books I've seen no purpose in buying a kindle and duplicating that collection.

I've rejected the kindle for professional reading (for now), but had never really considered the semi-pro category.



An option I had not considered. I'm going to monitor my time over the next couple of weeks and see if an e-reader would fit in my schedule somewhere.



I sometimes worry that I am waiting too long. I know that the e-reader is an inevitable part of my future, but I keep waiting for the right device at the right price.



Another hang-up that I have. When I do purchase an e-reader I want it to do all things. I want to use it for novels, textbooks, magazines, and journal articles. The notion of switching from one platform to another hasn't really appealed to me.

There are rumors of color e-ink nearing commercial development. I am keeping my fingers crossed. I think a 10 inch screen with color and without glare might win me over.



Lol. I have a much bigger problem getting the papers read than I do with reading the books. Loading up the pdfs and catching up on journal reading sounds positively brilliant.

I've looked seriously at the kindle dx for journal articles, but the price seems unnecessarily high. A reasonably priced wi-fi only dx would have me purchasing one pretty quickly, even without color. But at the current price it needs color to compete with something like the ipad. (I also dislike that they removed the SD slot for optional storage. I'd love to drop my journal article library on an SD card and plug it in.)

I'm seriously considering the ipad 2. The rumors are that it will have a low glare screen. For $120 more than a dx I'll put up with the back-lite display in exchange for color and extra functionality. (There are also two ipad competitors due to be released soon--I'll be looking at them as well.)